Crackling and delay issue possibly due to DAC input buffer - fixes?

[Cifer]

Hello everyone,

I've made a similar post on the Modartt forums, but nobody has been able to help me, so I'm trying my luck here as this might not be an issue specific to the Pianoteq 8 software.

Pianoteq 8 runs absolutely fine on all three of my systems running Windows 10 when I use the integrated audio, or the soundcard. Two are laptops, one is a desktop PC. I use 48k/48k, maximum polyphony and a buffer size of 64 for 1.3 ms delay with ASIO4ALL drivers. No crackling, no sound drops. CPU usage is rarely more than 20% of any single core.

As soon as I use an external DAC instead of the integrated audio - either a Topping DX1 or an Apple USB-to-3.5 mm adapter - I get sound drops and crackling. What's even weirder is that all buffer sizes behave as expected, but as soon as I select any combination of sample rate and buffer size giving me less than exactly 2.0 ms of delay, I get a very big delay of about half a second. All of this only happens with USB-DACs, on all systems. The USB devices work fine in any other scenario, so they're not the problem either.

I'm now relatively certain that the issue is the input buffer in the external DACs. When I select a buffer offset of 20 ms in the ASIO4ALL settings, the delay issue mentioned above improves by a lot. It's still more delayed than lower latency settings though.

I was told that Hifi DACs have this issue when playing music live. However, I don't want to record anything and would like to keep the sound of the Topping. Is there a cheap and simple solution to this issue? Anything that I could plug between the Topping or Apple dongle which deals with the input buffer issue?

Thanks a lot!

 

[Dunring]

First stop I would check the chipset for the USB in your system and go to the manufacturer web site to get new drivers. Windows and pc makers almost never keep updating them after the sale. Intel, realtek, etc will have the new ones.

The other is remove any bundled audio software that came with it and let windows handle everything. Autoruns is a great tool to check and see if any old sound drivers are still loading. The often don't remove completely and can cause this exact problem.

 

[Cifer]

First stop I would check the chipset for the USB in your system and go to the manufacturer web site to get new drivers. Windows and pc makers almost never keep updating them after the sale. Intel, realtek, etc will have the new ones.

The other is remove any bundled audio software that came with it and let windows handle everything. Autoruns is a great tool to check and see if any old sound drivers are still loading. The often don't remove completely and can cause this exact problem.

Thank you.

My system is always fully up-to-date. Here is a screenshot of the device manager (laptop bought while I was living in China, so excuse the Chinese pieces of text):

The USB 3.0 entries have drivers from 2022 and late 2021, and the other two USB ports have drivers from 2006 since there is nothing you can upgrade. The issue persists across all of the USB ports, so I doubt that drivers are the issue. Is there anything else I might need to update?

I don't quite understand what you mean by "bundled audio software". Bundled with what? The only audio-related driver I have installed is RealTek Audio. Disabling the entire RealTek sound chip hasn't solved the issue, and I presume removing the driver would be no different, or am I wrong? And what do you mean by letting Windows handle everything? If I use an external DAC Windows won't handle the sound, as far as I understand.

Anyway, here is a screenshot of the Autoruns driver tab. I don't see anything suspicious, but maybe you do:

I'm really out of ideas because this issue is exactly the same across all three systems, and with different DACs. I can't imagine that all three systems randomly happen to have the same problematic driver on them causing this very specific issue. It appears to me like it's a broader issue with live sound processing in Windows using DACs (and maybe specifically Pianoteq), and there must be a logical explanation for why I a) suddenly get 500 ms latency whenever the delay shown in Pianoteq goes below 2.0 ms and b) get crackling and sound drops despite almost no CPU usage ONLY when using DACs.

I've realized that selecting "Force WDM Driver to 16 Bit" in the Asio4all settings helps a tiny bit with the delay issue. (added it in the original post too.) Maybe that's a clue as to what the issue is.

 

[nsfgp]

No experience at all with any Midi device/keyboard-controller/etc. so I will just ask some generic questions and offer some comments to try out.
How does the ASIO4ALL driver comes into play/use currently?? Is your piano/Keyboard-controller connected to PC via usb?? Have you used/installed the Topping USB driver??
Some comments FYI if it may help:
1. For topping DAC the best USB driver to use is the Topping driver (Thesycon USB driver which supports ASIO) which is best for the XMOS in use. See if Pianoteq can select/use the Topping ASIO driver if it is using the ASIO4ALL driver. May be you need ASIO4ALL for some old PC sound cards but definitely not for these generation of Chinese DAC; they all use/adapt Thesycon drivers).
2. If the Piano/KB is connected via USB. Try to use USB3.0 port for the Piano and USB 2.0 port for Topping. The Topping probably worked best with 2.0 port anyway. Separate/use different USB hub/controller for each may help.
3. With the Topping driver installed you have the Topping control panel which you can monitor some settings and (maybe) possibly change some buffer settings related to latency ( I never messed with these settings before so not sure if it works or not):

I looked up some video for Pianoteq 8 and really amazed by the quality it can achieve. Good luck and have fun.

 

[Cifer]

No experience at all with any Midi device/keyboard-controller/etc. so I will just ask some generic questions and offer some comments to try out.
How does the ASIO4ALL driver comes into play/use currently?? Is your piano/Keyboard-controller connected to PC via usb?? Have you used/installed the Topping USB driver??
Some comments FYI if it may help:
1. For topping DAC the best USB driver to use is the Topping driver (Thesycon USB driver which supports ASIO) which is best for the XMOS in use. See if Pianoteq can select/use the Topping ASIO driver if it is using the ASIO4ALL driver. May be you need ASIO4ALL for some old PC sound cards but definitely not for these generation of Chinese DAC; they all use/adapt Thesycon drivers).
2. If the Piano/KB is connected via USB. Try to use USB3.0 port for the Piano and USB 2.0 port for Topping. The Topping probably worked best with 2.0 port anyway. Separate/use different USB hub/controller for each may help.
3. With the Topping driver installed you have the Topping control panel which you can monitor some settings and (maybe) possibly change some buffer settings related to latency ( I never messed with these settings before so not sure if it works or not):
View attachment 248669

I looked up some video for Pianoteq 8 and really amazed by the quality it can achieve. Good luck and have fun.

Thank you!

After reading your post I tried reinstalling the driver for the Topping a second time, and now it appears in Pianoteq and everything works fine. I thought it simply didn't work with Pianoteq, but it was actually faulty.

A recent Windows update must have messed with the driver, which also explains why I've had the driver not show up on any of my systems.

And thanks to everyone else who tried to help!